Novato October Events 2026: Cars, Culture and Halloween

At 4 p.m. on Friday, October 9, cars will start pulling into the parking lot at Our Lady of Loretto, 1806 Novato Boulevard. They come in from the side on Grant Avenue or from the back on Virginia Avenue. Drivers will spend about an hour shining and lining up before the Novato Police Department leads them into downtown at 5:15. The organizers leave out the romance and keep to the practical details, including a note that there are no bathrooms on site.

That lot is where Novato's October begins. Over the next three weeks the town's two biggest public gatherings are both built around a car that has stopped moving. One is a classic car parked along Grant Avenue for judging. The other is a decorated trunk opened on the Civic Green to honor someone who has died. Both events happen as the road outside that church lot gets ready for the most disruptive construction project it has seen in a generation.

A Friday cruise with a new name on it

This is the 30th Nostalgia Days, presented by the Downtown Novato Business Association. The organizers say Marv Giambastiani led the car show for many years and helped shape the event throughout its 30-year history. The Friday evening Hot Rod Cruise now carries his name.

The cruise is free. Owners who want to show their cars on Saturday can register that night. The organizers have not published a turn-by-turn route. Their information sheet points spectators to Grant Avenue between Machin Avenue and 7th Street.

If you want dinner before the cars roll, Fox Pizza in Ignacio is open Friday. The Foxes started as a pop-up and debuted their permanent spot in early August at 528 Alameda del Prado, the former Dragon Cafe. Their site lists Wednesday through Sunday, 4 to 8 p.m., for dine-in and pickup. Opening time leaves about an hour before the cruise starts at 5:15.

Saturday, seven blocks of Grant Avenue

On Saturday, October 10, the city closes seven blocks of Grant Avenue for the show, between Redwood Boulevard and 7th Street. The show doesn't open to the public until 10 a.m., but the street starts filling long before that. Registered cars can claim their spots starting at 6:30 a.m. at 1st Street and Grant Avenue. The information sheet tells entrants to reach 1st Street from Vallejo Avenue because the other access streets will already be closed.

The show runs until 4 p.m. and admission is free. The organizers expect hundreds of cars: classics, hot rods, trucks, customs and motorcycles. Awards go out in more than 20 categories, with cash prizes for Best in Show and People's Choice. This year's band is Mitch Polzak and The Royal Deuces, playing rockabilly and '60s country from 1 to 3:30 p.m., with a DJ covering the rest of the show.

The same morning, City Hall hosts a free Repair Fair from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Volunteers will help diagnose and fix eligible items, and there's a Halloween costume and decor swap alongside. Someone fixing a toaster and someone polishing chrome on Grant Avenue are doing the same thing that Saturday, a few blocks apart: caring for something old enough that it's worth keeping.

Two weeks later, the trunk becomes an altar

The City of Novato's Día de los Muertos celebration takes over the Civic Green at 901 Sherman Avenue on Saturday, October 24, from 3 to 6 p.m. The program includes a procession, a community ofrenda, sugar skull decorating, magnet making, face painting and food. New this year is the city's first car ofrenda display.

The city describes a car ofrenda as the trunk or rear of a vehicle turned into a traditional Día de los Muertos altar. Participants decorate with photographs, marigolds, LED candles, papel picado, favorite foods and other ofrenda items honoring the people they remember. Participation was free but limited, and the application window closed September 25. Applications went through the Margaret Todd Senior Center on Hill Road. Anyone who missed the deadline can still walk the display, which is free.

Put the two events side by side and the connection is plain. On October 10, the street honors Marv Giambastiani with a cruise in his name. On October 24, the Civic Green fills with car trunks arranged to honor other people's loved ones. In both cases the car is what draws the crowd, and in both it's parked and open for people to walk past and talk about.

The rest of the month, in one place

Between and around those two Saturdays, the calendar keeps sending people downtown on foot, mostly along Grant and Sherman.

The downtown market sits between the Downtown SMART station and the Redwood and Grant transit station, so you can reach it without a car. October 27 is the last Tuesday of its season. On Halloween, Grant Avenue goes back to the pedestrians who had it on October 10.

Where the cruise lines up, the road is about to change

Our Lady of Loretto sits on the stretch of Novato Boulevard that the city has been planning to rebuild since 2001. Council approved the designs in 2018. The project runs from Diablo Avenue to Grant Avenue and is a partnership with the Novato Sanitary District and the North Marin Water District. The sanitary district will replace aging sewer laterals and the water district will replace water lines. The city will add new stormwater pipes, replace traffic signals, and add a center lane, bike lanes, sidewalks, landscaping and driveway improvements. The total estimated cost is about $23.9 million.

The contract went through a second vote before it was settled. The council first approved Team Ghilotti on August 25. Argonaut Constructors filed a bid protest that afternoon, a couple of hours before the meeting. On September 22, after staff, the City Attorney's office and outside construction managers reviewed the bid, the council voted 4-0 to deny the protest. It then voted 4-0 to award Team Ghilotti $16,824,358, along with a $7.5 million capital budget amendment. Councilmember Sandeep Karkal recused himself from both votes because the project includes work for his employer, the Novato Sanitary District.

Public Works Director Chris Benigni hasn't softened what comes next. In August he told the council it will be "another 24 months of dirt, dust, noise." He noted that PG&E has been doing undergrounding and gas main work on the boulevard since last year, and said the city plans to communicate better with the neighborhood, manage traffic more carefully, and give notice well ahead of major disruptions. In September the city estimated construction would start in late September. No start date has been confirmed publicly since the re-award, so watch for city notices before you plan a route along the corridor.

One lane closure you can already see belongs to a different project. Redwood Boulevard between Rowland Boulevard and Rush Creek Place is being repaved, with a physically protected Class IV bikeway, and that work is scheduled to wrap up by late October.

So this year's cruise, the first named for Marv Giambastiani, leaves from a boulevard that is about to become a work zone. When the project is done, the drivers lining up at 1806 Novato Boulevard will pull out onto a road with a center lane, bike lanes and sidewalks it doesn't have tonight.

At Morgan Team Real Estate, we like seeing Grant Avenue turned over to classic cars one Saturday and to trick-or-treaters three weeks later. If the Novato Boulevard work leaves you with questions about your own street or what it means for a home along the corridor, we're happy to sit down and talk it through. Book an appointment and we'll help you sort out what to plan around.